Early industry and economy of the Lake District

The Forestry Commission's Grizedale Forest trails include examples of these pitsteads, though the last charcoal burn took place somewhat further south, at Ealing Hearth near Backbarrow in 1936. A more widespread and more picturesque reminder of the charcoal workings is the delightful coppice woodland of the low fells between Coniston Water and Lake Windermere; coppicing, in which oak, hazel and ash were cut across the base every 12 to 15 years, was designed to promote rapid growth to meet an almost insatiable demand for timber.

Iron smelting in the fells was gradually concentrated at larger and more sophisticated smelters, the first of which was built at Cunsey, on the western shores of Lake Windermere. A bloomery was operating here by 1623, but less than a century later a smelting furnace had been built by ironmasters from Cheshire; now the water leat and the heaps of iron slag are the only obvious remains.

Other eighteenth-century furnace sites were those at Backbarrow (the largest of all, founded in 1711 and working continuously until 1965), Low Bridge, Penny Bridge and Nibthwaite, together with Spark Bridge and Force Forge, two names which emphasise the former importance of the iron industry in the area. At Nibthwaite, close to the River Crake, the forge oven and the site of the forge survive, but the mill itself is a later rebuilding.

The decline of the iron industry in the Lake District

As the nineteenth century progressed the iron industry declined and much of the southern Lake District's remaining woodland was pressed into service as the raw material for a variety of smaller and more intimate craft industries. These included the manufacture of pit props, pick and hammer shafts, brush handles, swill baskets and barrels, though by far the most important of these industries was bobbin manufacture, which developed to service the textile industries in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Of the 25 bobbin mills which were in production at the beginning of the twentieth century, only two survived the 1960s, largely because of competition from Scandinavia and, more recently, the replacement of wood by plastic.

Caldbeck Bobbin Mill the Lake District

The bobbin mill at Caldbeck, wrecked by fire and long since disused, can still be seen in its remarkably constricted position in• the deeply etched limestone gorge known as The Howk; it once boasted a waterwheel 13m (42ft) in diameter, reputedly the largest of its kind in England. The five mills around Staveley, on the River Kent, have gradually closed, though wood turning and paper making survives there.

The last outpost of the bobbin industry was located much further west, at Spark Bridge on the River Crake; its final competitor was the mill at Low Stott Park, at the foot of Lake Windermere, which latterly employed only a handful of workers and finally closed in 1971, but happily has been restored as a working museum, with much of the machinery still in place.

The coppice woodlands, and specifically those of ash, had yet another use, that of providing charcoal for gunpowder manufacture. The first mill was built in 1764 by John Wakefield at Sedgwick, south of Kendal and just outside the National Park, but ash charcoal from High Furness was soon being used in gunpowder mills at Low Wood, Gatebeck, Blackbeck and at Elterwater in Langdale.

Much of the gunpowder produced in these works was used locally, in the slate quarries and copper mines of the Coniston and Keswick areas, though some was exported as far afield as Derbyshire. The industry died out in the 1920s with the introduction of new explosives such as dynamite, and the closure of Low Wood in 1936 saw the end of another rural Lake District industry.

At Low Wood the buildings, including an imposing tower, can still be seen, but at Elterwater the greatest surviving contri¬bution to the landscape is probably the much visited corrie lake of Stickle Tam, which was dammed and raised in level to provide an adequate source of water power for the gunpowder works some distance downstream.

Wool and water mills in the Lake District

The lakes and in particular the rivers of the Lake District have been a considerable natural asset to the development of its rural economy, not least with the provision of water power for some of the developments discussed in the last section. Originally, however, the rivers and streams were harnessed for corn mills and, in the later medieval period, the fulling mills which using the fleeces of the hardy sheep which now thickly populated the fells ides formed the cornerstone of a once flourishing local woollen industry.

Although its natural centre was Kendal, just outside the National Park, the manufacture of the cloth was really a cottage industry. The wool was collected, carded, spun and woven on Lakeland farms hence the spinning galleries, which are discussed further in the next chapter¬and then taken to one of the many fulling mills which had been established by the sixteenth century. In Grasmere parish alone there were eighteen mills at this time; sadly none of them have survived.

The decline and fall of these scattered mills was brought about by the invention of more sophisticated machinery, which in turn needed the power provided by mills on the main rivers. The Kent valley, which was also well placed for exporting the finished products to the rest of the country, became preeminent.

Skiddaw Keswick and Millbeck

Other areas fared less well. The hamlet of Millbeck, nestling under the slopes of Skiddaw to the north of Keswick was, as.its name suggests, highly dependent on its mills for its livelihood. New fulling and carding mills were built in the early nineteenth century to produce a variety of materials blanket checks, flannel, kersey and even carpets. But competition from the larger and better located Yorkshire mills, combined with falling demand, led to the closure of the mills in 1886; the carding mill survives as a private house.

At Caldbeck, where the woollen mill (downstream from the bobbin mill already described) specialised in producing a heavy grey overcoat cloth known as Ivenson Grey, the work lasted rather longer but has long since ceased, leaving yet another abandoned mill to excite the curiosity of tourists drawn to the village by its associations with John Peel.

Not all the disused woollen mills found a new purpose and a new lease of life, then, but quite often the best sites were adapted to new uses and remained in production for centuries. The industries concerned ranged from corn milling through woollens and cotton ¬there were cotton mills in the southern Lake District, at Backbarrow (the Dolly Blue works) and Spark Bridge, in the eighteenth and early.

The Dolly Blue works at Backbarrow

The Dolly Blue works at Backbarrow, once a cotton mill but now ingeniously converted into an hotel and timeshare complex nineteenth centuries to tanning, brewing, saw milling and iron manufacture. Villages such as Caldbeck and hamlets such as Millbeck, as we have already seen, were heavily dependent on the employment generated by the mills, but it is not always appreciated just how many settlements were in this position: for example Lorton, now a quiet village in the delightful Buttermere valley, developed entirely because of its attractions for water powered industry.

Jennings Brewery Cockermouth

Jennings Brewery, a rare example of a surviving independent brewery, has been located in Cockermouth since 1887, but originated in Lorton in 1828 and moved only when demand for the beer outstripped the capacity of its premises in the village.

Stock Ghyll Ambleside

Ambleside owes its early growth to the suitability of Stock Ghyll, a fast flowing stream in a steepsided woodland gorge, as a source of water power. At least half a dozen mills corn mills, fulling mills, bark mills, a bobbin mill and a paper mill were established here. The former corn mill on the north bank of the stream has been restored quite recently; it originally dates from the fourteenth century, and by 1639 was in the hands of the Braithwaite family of Ambleside Hall.

Corn was still being ground here until early in the twentieth century, but it is now a pottery and shop, and the overshot waterwheel, with a diameter of Sm (16ft), is a reproduction dating from 1973. Although the water mills no longer support a local woollen industry, knitwear is still produced for tourists by Ambleside firms.

Mills in the National Park

Two mills within the National Park have been carefully restored and opened to visitors. At Boot in Eskdale the former corn mill by the Whillan Beck, constructed of the local pink granite, is the successor to the manorial mill which was in operation by the thirteenth century. The present mill was operating until the 1920s and includes an excellent example of a drying loft, where the corn was dried over tiles before being ground.

There is also a working waterwheel. Cumbria County Council began the restoration of the mill in 1975, and a decade's painstaking work has certainly brought its rewards. The Whillan Beck also supported a carding mill, and the ruins of this the highest building in the valley can still be picked out above Gill Bank Farm. Still in Eskdale but closer to the Irish Sea coast is Muncaster Mill, restored to working order by the Eskdale (Cumbria) Trust in the 1970s.

There was a mill on this site by 1470, though the present structure is only about 200 years old. Corn was milled until 1914, then oatmeal and cattle feed for the next forty years until it was closed down in 1954. Now the mill, which boasts a 4m (13ft) overshot waterwheel, produces oatmeal and wholemeal flour, and visitors are able to observe the whole operation, from kilning the oats through husking, sieving and grinding to the production of the finished article.

The buildings and landscape of the Lake District

The contribution of man to the medieval landscape which reflected the Norman colonisation of the Lake District, the very substantial influence of the monks on the area, and the response of the area's inhabitants to the threat posed by the cattle raiders from across the Scottish border during the turbulent early Middle Ages.

That response was often to construct pele towers, solid defensive structures for use in times of strife. In more peaceful times nonfortified extensions offering greater comfort though less security could be contemplated.

But these peles were rarities in the landscape, which until at least 1600 contained few stone buildings; medieval farmhouses were generally less solidly built and none, sadly, has survived. Building in stone did, however, become commonplace from the seventeenth century onwards, and it is to this period that we now turn, considering the form of these new dwellings and seeking out some of the best surviving examples. The contribution of the stone walls of the Lake District to the present day landscape is also explored.

Just as important to the understanding of the present landscape, however, is a grasp of the factors which caused certain of the settlements in the district to take the first steps along the road to their present status as towns. Some of these settlements failed, despite the ambitions of their promoters, to make much progress and lapsed into sleepy villages which these days contain only a few hints as to their former importance: Ireby, Hesket Newmarket and Ravenglass all fall into this category. Keswick, Ambleside and Kendal, amongst others, successfully achieved urban status as, later and for different reasons, did Windermere.

Things to do in the keswick

Whether you are booked into a hotel in Windermere, Keswick, Bowness, Ambleside or Penrith, you will find plenty to do and see in the Lake District. If you are visiting the lakes with the family, take a trip to the Lakes Aquarium near Bowness, the Beatrix Potter Attraction, also in Bowness, or perhaps spend a day at Go Ape in the Grizedale Forest, where the more energetic members of the family can navigate the high wires and adventure playground above the forest canopy.